Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg Make Time 100

Two Silicon Valley founders and chief executives made the Time 100 list of most influential people in the world. Google's Larry Page and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg were included in the list with Oprah Winfrey, U.S. Air Force commander Major General Margaret Woodward and virologist Nathan Wolfe.

Page's profile included a short essay by a former professor from Stanford, Terry Winograd. "As Larry returns to his leadership role as Google's CEO, he will surely keep taking risks," he writes in Time. "He will continue to push Google to innovate. I expect him always to be a bit quirky, to raise hackles and to pursue things that seem unreasonable and unreachable — until the very moment they become a reality."

Zuckerberg's short essay was penned by April Capone, the mayor of East Haven, Conn. who donated a kidney to person who sent out a Facebook plea. "Every year nearly 7,000 people in the U.S. die while awaiting a transplant," she writes. "I know of at least one person who survived, thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, 26, and his little idea called Facebook."

While Page's profile gave some insight into the actual person, I felt Capone's essay was schmaltzy and read like an infomercial. Yes, organ donation is an important cause and I don't denigrate that, but we're supposed to be writing about why Zuckerberg is influential. Unless he started an organ match app on Facebook it's not really appropriate. (Also check out the sketch of Page which is highly unflattering.)

Perhaps I'm taking this too seriously. How great is a 100 most influential list that includes "Gossip Girl" actress Blake Lively and Justin Bieber?

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